Throughout time, we’ve seen and learnt about how music technology has developed over the centuries from the rise of instruments to the rise of the phonograph. Today, our most utilized piece of music tech is streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple music, Youtube, Soundcloud etc). If you listen to music on your private time, then its safe to say we all use some type of streaming platform to accomplish our goal of listening to music. By having a countless number of songs on your device, WITHOUT taking up your personal storage, services like Spotify (my favorite platform) are able to deliver any song that comes to mind. Though, Spotify was originally known as a music streaming platform, today we see other purposes come about like podcasts or talk shows. Personally, I tend to prefer Spotify for official music because Soundcloud and Youtube sometimes have multiple recordings of the same song and some aren’t the best quality. However, I do use Soundcloud for unreleased music (Unreleased music is never on Spotify because Spotify needs official licensing from every record label for every song.
Spotify changed the way artists get their music out as well ass how we intake music. Famous singers from before Spotify’s time, such as Elvish Presly, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Bob Marley, etc are all easy to listen to on Spotify by the tap of a button. This helped the younger gen (Gen Z) get familiar with some old time artists, while retired artists found a way to keep restreaming their music and keep a sustainable income.
Here’s of an example of a song from 1977 that is famously known today through the use of our streaming platforms.